


cut out all the ropes (and let me fall)

by trashyeggroll



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Enemies to ???, F/F, Slow Burn, They got all the issues, XS/Weather Witch, dad issues, mom issues, this was such a missed opportunity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 10:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19003819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashyeggroll/pseuds/trashyeggroll
Summary: After learning to use the Negative Speed Force, Nora West-Allen navigates her plan to get back in with Team Flash - but she's having trouble staying focused with a certain Weather Witch so close. (A revisiting of 5x20 "Gone Rogue")





	cut out all the ropes (and let me fall)

**Author's Note:**

> Ya'll can't just throw us the "Spencer Young flirting with a completely flustered Nora" bone and then not take full advantage of the Joss opportunity.
> 
> This is largely based off of the episode 5x20 Gone Rogue with a buildup to a very different ending.

After Bolivia, Keystone City is a little… drab. It’s much smaller than Central City, inhabited mostly by the white working class folks who’ve spent generations guarding Iron Heights Prison. There isn’t much going on in the core of the city, much less the outskirts, where she finds herself nearing the GPS target on her phone: the coordinates for a mysterious job offer that sounded, honestly, too good to be true—but also too good to miss.

Dropping quickly from the clouds to avoid being seen, Joss lands next to a a red and white metal building that she’d first thought was a barn. After wrenching open a back door, expecting dessicated farm creatures, she discovers an apparently abandoned auto shop and checks around for anything modestly valuable not nailed to the floor, until the garage door opens on the other side of the space.

A black and yellow motorcycle with matching rider rolls into the large room, and Joss isn’t surprised to see blonde hair when the bee-themed helmet comes off. Brie Larvan’s pretty, in that Jenna Marbles kind of way, with huge blue eyes that seem to warrant the nickname she so loathes.

“Pretty paint job,” greets Joss blandly, already a little bored. She’d been hoping for someone more exciting than _Larvan_ being behind the mysterious message.

“Predators know these colors get you stung,” offers the blonde as the door closes behind her, and Joss doesn’t bother hiding her wince at the cheesy line.

“Yeah, it’s always a _great_ idea for a thief to draw attention to herself.”

“At least I don’t fly around in a fuzzy green sweater. Didn’t think I’d recognize Weather Wizard’s kid?”

“It’s Weather Witch.” _Bitch,_ she doesn’t add. This is a rather confined space for a spat with the bee lady. “I have a name, okay Bug-Eyed Bandit?”

“Don’t call me that. That’s _their_ name,” spits Larvan.

Joss just shrugs. “I heard you took your Robot Bee act to Star City, something about curing a spinal tumor?”

“Well, I heard you and your other half were in Bolivia, or did Silver Ghost ditch you?”

“Van Zandt talked a big game.”

“She tried to recruit me too. What did she want to call us? Young—“

The lid of a nearby crate explodes upward, cutting Larvan off, and they watch as Rag Doll unfolds himself from the container. His rough, Jigsaw Killer-esque mask is off-putting enough, but the cracking, chittering noises his bones make are enough to set Joss’ teeth on edge. She checks herself with a deep inhale, fingers squeezing the staff— _You can’t be scared of other supervillians._ That seemed like a baseline level requirement for her current career choices, at the very least.

“Rag Doll, right? You blew up the Seaver building. Bee-eautiful,” greets Larvan, apparently completely unashamed of puns.

“And whom do I thank for my mysterious invitation?” asks Merkel as he lifts himself into a normal human shape. His smooth voice has an eerie multiplicity to it, like he’s echoing his own words as he speaks.

Then, Joss realizes that Larvan is looking at her, as if she’s the one who brought them together. She tenses. “Wait, I got an anonymous offer, too. This wasn’t your job?”

The blonde shakes her head, eyes widening. “I thought this was your job.”

“Actually, _I_ invited you.”

The voice makes Joss’ skin tingle before she even spots its owner—XS. Though she’s wearing her racoon mask, the speedster isn’t sporting her body suit, instead decked out in all dark colors, leather jacket and… _fitting_ black pants.

“You want us to work for you?” Joss blurts, wrestling that thought away and keeping her eyes squarely on XS’ face.

“Not for me. _With_ me. One big score, split four ways.”

“What’s the catch, Goody Two-Shoes?” seethes Queen Bee in her best version of Regina George.

“No catches, no tricks,” insists the speedster, before going on anyway with, “Just one condition: No killing.”

There it is—Joss rolls her eyes as the gathered invitees share a chuckle. It’s a sloppy trap, even for Team Flash. “Well, this has been really fun guys, I’m out.”

“If anybody dies, the cops will be all over us.”

 _Like how you left me last time?_ Joss goes with the burst of anger in her chest, exacerbated by history, and snarls at XS, “Yeah, you would love that, huh? I’m surprised The Flash isn’t already here.”

“I’m not working with him anymore,” she protests without flinching.

“Look, you can put on your leather, and you can act like a bad girl all you want, but you will _never_ be one of us.”

As the Witch turns to walk away, Nora’s high, strong voice stops her, the words digging in like talons: “What about the ice patch? If you don’t trust me, why did you stop that test car from running me over?”

“Is she for real?” asks Larvan over her shoulder, eyes narrowing.

Joss blinks, caught off guard. XS wasn’t supposed to know about that. She’d chosen to freeze the road for that very reason, to let Killer Frost take the credit—but the speedster was pinning her with a gaze of unwavering confidence in the truth. So she just deflects: “It was cold. Water freezes.”

“Not like that, it doesn’t,” mutters the speedster, moving a little closer to them, even as her eyes stay locked with Joss’. Look, these past few months, I have been through a lot. I’m not the same person I was.”

“Okay, prove it. What’s the job?”

XS’ proposed jackpot, a trove of meta-tech weapons, makes easy sense. The steps to get in the McCulloch building, The Forge? A little less focused, but only because the speedster insisted on the whole no-death concept to the point that they were aiming to minimize guard confrontations. She wanted to kidnap a hacker from STAR Labs, insisting Queen Bee’s experience with programming her nanobees wasn’t enough. Joss would’ve been less inclined to continue going along with it, if not for the implied $100 million team payday, a cool $25 million apiece. Living on the lamb isn’t cheap.

They make a plan to pick up the hacker first, and Joss finds herself zoning in and out as she XS speaks. Something’s tugging at her memory, almost like deja vu, but… She can’t quite place it. The speedster is striking even behind a mask, all jawline, wide mouth with plush, dark cherry lips. She’s compact, but still seems to take up every free atom in the room with her presence, diligently leading the team through the steps to launch their two-prong assault. If she had to put words to it, Joss feels like she _knows_ XS somehow, and not _just_ from their previous battles. It’s maddening, but it’s a decent distraction from the way her eyes want to linger on the speedster even when Larvan is talking, until the fallen superhero’s gold-brown eyes catch hers from under long lashes, and she’s forced to look away before her cheeks heat to the point that the other Rogues can see. It’s stupid. She just hasn’t had any action since leaving Silver Ghost, that’s all.

The plan seems easy and straightforward enough to pull off, anyway. If Larvan notices Joss’ lackluster concentration, she says nothing, and Merkel is of course completely inscrutable behind his eerie mask, occasionally bobbing his head or asking questions in that odd, flanged way of his. When they’re finished, they split up more or less to prepare, though that just means Rag Doll crawls back in his box and Larvan messes with a small cloud of synthetic bees near her bike.

XS putters around in the back office, and Joss decides the other woman’s just trying to look busy as she watches from the main garage. The speedster looks… sad. Conflicted, maybe, certainly a far cry from the righteous asshole superhero who dropped her in a police station months ago. Whatever happened to XS in the interim, it seems to have been at least as unpleasant as Joss’ days on the run.

 

* * *

 

Nora West-Allen still isn’t sure about her own plan. At the moment, she isn’t even one hundred percent sure of her own mind. Thawne’s big picture makes sense: If she isn’t going to kill Cicada, Nora can at least take out the dagger, cripple her offense—but the only way McCulloch would ever part with the weapon she needs for this is by subterfuge and/or force. She has both of those in spades with Rag Doll, Queen Bee, and the Weather Witch in her corner.

Joss Jackam. Nora peers at her new team member, former foe, through the back office doorway. The witch is buzzing random spots around the garage with mini lightning bolts from her staff, like a pitcher warming up, and sometimes her dark eyes flicker up to meet the speedster’s. Nora looks away, but inevitably, she finds herself staring again. Despite the other two villains’ history with Team Flash, it’s the Weather Witch who has the most detailed history with XS herself.

She’s wearing a convincing, seemingly permanent scowl, but Nora still remembers Joss as the crumbling woman behind the defendant table in court, eyes round with the reality of what she’d nearly done at the airport. That version of the Weather Witch is still in there, somewhere; why else would Joss agree so easily to working together again, after what she’d done?

Nora understands that particular inner conflict all too well. Joss’ rage and devastation, driving her to kill her own father—it echoes the feelings from the cold chasm in her stomach where the Negative Speed Force lives now, rolling and seeping into the rest of her body and mind. Most moments, she can tell when the NSF is affecting her, and she can certainly tell when it’s taken over, but… The longer she lives with it, the less clear that line becomes. She knows this isn’t the first time she’s noticed Joss’ slender form, somehow delinquent and elegant at the same time, but this is the first time she’s also considered how it might feel to press that body up against the rusted machine blocks, to maybe press her fingers around that throat…

 _That’s enough of that._ It’s probably just the NSF; if love is the opposite of everything it needs, then surely her focus on the supervillain is from that, right? Of course. XS gives her head a shake, like a dog coming out of a lake, and moves to where she can’t see Joss from the office anymore. _There, fixed._

When it comes time to make their move on STAR Labs, XS gathers the misfit group, which Queen Bee has dubbed the Young Rogues per Silver Ghost, and they head out from their impromptu HQ, Merkel on the back of the blonde’s motorcycle and the Weather Witch zipping through the air on electrons. At speed, Nora can almost see her moving overhead, particles of light swirling through the clouds like a Willy Wonka effect.

But she puts Joss from her mind when they split up, and she makes it into the Starchives. Spencer Young’s meta-contaminated phone is still in its blue protective case when Nora pulls it from a storage box, and a little, mischievous voice between her ears whispers about what a shame it is that the handsome gossip reporter got put behind bars before she could… XS huffs, pushing the voice aside. Soon, like Old Faithful, she next hears the telltale _whoosh_ of her father showing up and her plan taking shape in reality.

“Nora…”

XS turns, inclines her chin. “Hi, dad.”

“Is that Spencer Young’s phone? What are you doing?”

His voice is cautious, but not hostile, which surprises Nora enough that she replies softly, rather than with the bite she’d intended, “You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you.”

“Nora… I shouldn’t have left things the way that I did, all right? I want you to come home. We all do. You just have to stop working with Thawne.” He’s walking towards her, ever so slowly, as he speaks, and Nora stands her ground.

“Target acquired,” Merkel murmurs, unnecessarily quietly, into her earpiece.

“Copy that,” she answers offhandedly.

Barry’s brows twitch up. “Are you talking to someone?”

 _Are you talking to Him?_ is what she _knows_ he wants to say, and Nora feels warmth rise in her cheeks as she pockets Young’s phone. “What do you think, I’m talking to Thawne? He’s in the future, Dad. I can’t exactly call him up.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, but did you _did_ say that I couldn’t come home if I was still working with him.” XS scoffs, and the air in the room begins to heat and dry around them. “You still don’t trust me.”

“Nora, trust takes time,” he’s saying, just a few feet away now.

 _He’s making excuses,_ whispers that new voice in her head, the one with tendrils drawing from the blackness in her stomach. _He’s just stalling until he can figure out how to defeat you._

 _“_ Then what’s to stop you from sending me back the next time you get pissed at me? Nothing,” snarls XS, atoms jumping into hyperdrive, the Negative Speed Force exploding across her skin and rising in her chest. _He’s a liar. He abandoned you. He abandons you in every timeline._ “Because you’ve given up on me, again. Given up on me like you do _every time.”_

“Nora, what are you doing?”

“You know, I came back here to meet you, and the second I got here, you started pushing me away, and then you left me in the future. You just dumped me in the middle of the street and _walked away.”_

Just vocalizing the memory strikes her hard, and Nora has a fleeting thought that the Negative Speed Force is taking over, and then she’s in it—the dam breaks, and the full power of her anger, hurt, and sense of betrayal surges to the forefront.

“You have to stop.”

 _He could have come back and gotten you, said these things in peace. But he didn’t. He’s just trying to control you again. “_ And you didn’t come with Mom to bring me back, because you don’t want me here. You don’t want me at all.”

“Nora, _please—”_

“I hate you.” She doesn’t realize until later that she’s screaming the words, because she’s too focused on ridding her body of the rage that threatens to rip her skin open, and her father is thrown back into a cabinet by twin bolts of purple-red lightning. He hasn’t even hit the ground before she’s speeding away.

She’d like to take a few laps around the city to work off the extra energy coursing through her veins, but that’s too risky, so she stops in an abandoned field near the red building, hard enough that the landowner is going to have a new, crater-shaped pond after the next heavy rain.

It’s hot in her bad guy leather outfit, and she’s _pissed,_ and there’s no one around for miles, so she lets the energy flow out of her in lightning bolts and screaming, just unintelligible sounds that come closer to expressing the depth her anger than words ever could. _It would have been better if you never met him,_ the voice eggs her on. _He’s done nothing but show you how your life is worse for Barry Allen._

 

* * *

 

There’s something a little off about XS as soon as she returns to the garage. Joss isn’t sure why she’s so late to begin with, and admittedly a little suspicious of it, but her questions quickly sweep away when she feels the air in the room grow dry, like all the moisture’s being burnt up. She focuses on her staff, using its power to feel out the room, and it’s positively vibrating with the barely-contained force of XS’s power. Whatever happened at STAR Labs, the speedster is agitated, her muscles tensed.

Alas, their two mouthy captives don’t seem to notice, and they’re almost immediately teasing XS about her plan. It’s not a smart move, for however genius the hacker one is supposed to be.

“This phone was synced to Spencer Young’s DNA,” XS is saying as she hands him the device. “We need you to hack past the coding so we can use it.”

Joss blinks, incredulous, when the two captive men start chortling, exchanging knowing looks in a way that suggests they are truly not concerned for their wellbeing, despite being prisoners at present. A part of the Weather Witch wonders if it’s because this is all some Team Flash plan, like she first suspected, but XS quickly puts that worry to rest.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to blow up your spot fangirl, it’s just that I’ve done this exact same thing before,” explains Ramon with open amusement while the Frenchman snuffles through his laughter. “We need to hack a weapon, let’s kidnap Cisco. I mean, what’re you—you joined a Rogues cover band or something?”

The sound of XS’s vibrations is loud and unsettling enough to startle Larvan, and Joss tilts her head to get a better look at the speedster’s blurry arm as it curves towards Ramon’s chest, threatening to shred the molecular fabric of his organs. He stops laughing.

“How’s this for a cover band?” XS hisses, her voice overlapped with deeper echoes of itself.

“Oldie but a goodie,” he acquiesces, gulping.

The Frenchman jumps in: “Look, XS, I owe you an apology. I never should have exposed your secret the way I did. I put my pride in front of the family that took me in— _your_ family.” He lowers his voice to a sympathetic rumble. “And your family loves you. I’m sure your father told you as much today, right?”

“You saw your father?” growls the Queen Bee. “You said you were robbing The Flash.”

It hits Joss like lightning, so to speak: The speedster’s lightning is purple and yellow, or it was the last time she saw her move. Today, The Flash’s yellow has been replaced by red. She bumps her staff on the ground and interjects, “No. No, don’t you get it? Her old man _is_ The Flash.”

“Look, you don’t have to worry about The Flash, okay?” XS turns to them, and though she’s no longer vibrating, she looks no less on edge (or less dangerous). “Just get Ramon started on that phone.”

And with that, the speedster storms off, disappearing into the back office while the trio of villains and two sidekicks regard each other warily.

“If you try to pull something, we’ll kill you, and then we’ll kill your little friend in there,” warns Larvan in a voice dripping with honey and venom as she moves behind the chairs. “I’ve wasted enough time on this already—there better be a _good_ payday at the end.”

“Oh, I’m sure you all will get what’s coming to you,” mutters the Frenchman, rubbing his arms as the ropes fall away from his torso. Larvan leaves his legs attached to the chair just in case, but completely frees Ramon to begin his work on the phone. The blonde has a laptop he can use, but there’s no WiFi or ethernet for him to get into trouble.

“Can a guy get a little room to think?” complains Ramon, peering over his shoulder at Merkel’s eerily looming form.

“Just remember what I said.” Larvan curls a lip at them, releasing a single bee from her sleeve to disappear into the rafters. “And we’re always watching.”

For a few minutes, Joss successfully keeps herself busy daydreaming about the havoc she could wreak with $25 million, but every now and then, movement in her periphery catches her attention. XS is pacing the small, private space, arms crossed, lips moving in what looks like a silent, dramatic monologue. The righteous anger in her expression tickles at that _something_ in Joss’ mind again, and she chews her lip as she thumbs through her memories again. That haircut. The stern brow. Someone lecturing her… No, not lecturing her, talking _about_ her to someone else while she listened…

Lightning strikes again, and it’s unsettling enough that Joss almost drops her phone as she pulls up her cloud drive of encrypted files. The trial—the forensic investigator. A raccoon mask can’t hide that voice, the principled hard-headedness. She matches it to the voice coming over the radio in the car with Silver Ghost, and everything clicks into place when she finds the name of the CSI whose righteous anger had prompted Joss’ confession in open court: _Nora Allen._

Before even realizing she’s moved, the Witch is shutting the office door behind her and saying in as quiet a voice as she can manage, “You’re a cop.”

XS stops mid-stride, but she doesn’t turn her head before replying, “I’m not a cop. I’m a crime scene investigator. But not anymore, just like I’m not working with my d—The Flash. You can trust me. I’ve taken us this far, haven’t I? Kidnapping and larceny not proof enough for you?”

“It’s you who doesn’t trust us. You tell an awful lot of lies for someone trying to convince us this isn’t a trap, _Nora._ ” Joss pauses for effect, mildly impressed that XS doesn’t take the the bait, but she keeps pressing, “Yeah, turns out your secret identity isn’t worth much.”

The speedster finally pivots to face her, sighing, and reaches up to pull off her mask. She looks almost… sheepish, and seems to curl in on herself as her arm drops.

Joss rocks back on her heels, trying to keep her face neutral even as she takes in the full effect of _Nora,_ up close, for the first time. The Witch easily connects the face to the memory of the CSI from her trial, and the mask hadn’t covered all that much of her face, but there’s still a novelty to the woman in front of her that’s making her pulse do weird things.

Seemingly unaware of Joss’ sudden shortness of breath, XS looks at the floor as she sighs, “Feels like nothing about me is worth much lately.”

 _Oof._ Joss has to wrestle away the flare of sympathy that blooms in her chest at the familiar, defeated tone falling from XS’ lips. She can guess the basic points of that pain before Nora even says them, but she listens anyway.

“My dad left me, after everything that I’ve done to try and help him,” continues the speedster, putting a hand to her temple. “You know what the most embarrassing part of it is? There's this tiny, little, weak part of me that still wants him to walk through that door and take me home.”

After the display in the other room, Joss is somewhat taken back by the earnest sadness in XS’ words and voice. She’s being _vulnerable,_ which the Weather Witch isn’t much used to these days, and the revelation draws her in, booted feet shuffling across the cement floor towards the speedster. She doesn’t quite remember, after everything she’s been through in the last decade on her own, how proper people console each other, but she offers what she can, anyway. “My dad left my mom at the maternity ward. She couldn’t look at me without seeing him. She made sure I knew it, too, so the day I turned thirteen, I ran. I didn’t leave town at first. I stayed under the overpass with all the other runaways, and I thought for sure, one night, I’d look up, and I’d see my mom… She never showed.”

“I’m sorry.” XS looks up with what Joss initially reads as pity, but after a beat, it looks more like… what? _Camaraderie? Concern?_

She forges on: “I learned a long, long time ago that when people tell you that family is first, that they’ll always be there for you… they’re full of it. That’s why stuff like this works perfectly for me.”

There’s a beat where something awkward settles over the speedster’s face, and XS blinks at her, owlishly, and tilts her head as some of the previous sadness gives way to confusion. “What, uh, works for you? Like, you and-you and me?”

To be frank, the Witch thinks it’s a stretch based on what she’d just said, but it’s… _Interesting._ Joss resists the urge to smirk as Nora’s whole body begins to _squirm,_ redness creeping into her bronze cheeks, and she clarifies, “The job?”

“Oh! Right. Yes. Of course, the-the job. Ha.”

Now just feet away, Joss can see the way the speedster’s heartbeat has picked up, thudding away in her neck, and the Witch risks moving closer, into Nora’s personal space. The speedster backs up until her hips bump against the edge of a desk, her hand scrabbling for purchase against the edge as Joss hovers. Despite her intent to put the shorter woman on edge, Joss feels an answering tug in her lower body as she feels the energy coming off XS in waves.

“The job, of course,” she confirms, and this time the Witch lets her lips curl up at the corners. Nora’s eyes track the movement and stay there, perfect teeth sinking into her own bottom lip. “What else could I possibly be talking about?”

If Nora has an answer for that, Joss never hears it, because Larvan blusters into the room like a storm cloud, practically knocking the door off the hinges as she’s going on about some final reservations with the plan. The speedster practically teleports away from The Witch before Queen Bee looks up, and Joss is left to wonder.

 

* * *

 

The cut of the Air Force uniform isn’t her favorite, but Nora has bigger worries than how her legs look in the thick blue fabric as they pass the security checkpoint at McCulloch. Except Joss is behind her, and she can _feel_ the taller woman’s eyes on her, or so she thinks—she isn’t sure what to make of their last encounter. Maybe that had been _a moment_ in the office, but Joss is a true villain, a felon on the lamb, and she’s trying to keep that thought at front of her mind to keep the dark-haired witch and whatever her opinion of Nora’s aforementioned legs out of it. For now.

With Larvan using Young’s phone, they get in just fine, even earning a personal tour with one of the generals. The McCulloch rep namedrops and bloviates the whole time, offering useless sales jargon, but it isn’t long before he walks them right up to their target.

“Uh, what’s behind that door?” she calls to the man, innocently as she can.

“Ah! That’s what our engineers have dubbed ‘The Forge.’ That’s where we develop and test our new weapons. Unfortunately, it’s only accessible to employees with the highest security clearance.”

The three women exchange looks, and when their guide turns again, Joss moves first. She lifts her hidden weapon and expertly nails three men with paralyzing neck cuffs while Larvan and Nora knock out the rest, until it’s just them standing in the stark white room.

“Remember, no killing,” hisses XS, meeting Larvan’s eye in particular.

They rip off their official duds in favor of their normal clothes and tech pieces, and in lieu of spending too much time looking at Joss’ skintight black leather pants, Nora puts the briefcase containing Peter Merkel down on a table, unlocking it so he can climb out in his usual overly dramatic way.

“Mm, cozy,” he purrs as he spiders around the table.

“Ready, clown?”

After what might’ve been a nod in reply, he crawls across the ground past the other two Rogues, and Joss raises an incredulous brow. “You sure you can fit through that thing?”

“This shall be my aria,” he announces with all the flair of an orchestra maestro as he rips the cover off the pipe.

“Remember, once you get to the other side, the dampener will take out your power, so get out quick,” warns Nora, and she gets no acknowledgement before Rag Doll shoves his face into the PVC tube.

It’s not a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination, and Nora’s stomach twists at the particularly loud crunching noises his body makes as it disappears.

“Yeah, I’m gonna vomit,” complains Joss, even as she continues to watch.

They can hear Merkel humming happily to himself as he moves up the wall, and just seconds later, the massive metal door hisses and swings open. Rag Doll almost looks like a horror house butler, holding out a triumphant arm to welcome them into The Forge as he greets, “Open sesame.”

“Stay with the hostages. We’ll grab you on the way out,” says Nora as they pass, and this time, Merkel agrees with a tilt of his masked head before closing the door again behind them.

The space is certainly impressive, stuffed with all manner of stylized weaponry, tanks, testing spaces, and a huge green device that almost look like a satellite affixed to a massive cement column.

“That’s one serious meta-dampener,” comments Larvan with a low whistle.

Casting about the room, Nora quickly finds a table of non-traditional guns—and the weapon she’s looking for is _right there,_ gleaming like a sword in stone. She goes for it immediately, almost forgetting the other two women are there, until she notices them watching her. “Last part of the plan. Load up.”

 _They did it._ She made a plan, assembled a team, and broke into one of the most secure locations on the planet. Boom.

Her triumph is short-lived, however, when she sees Larvan smirk. “Sorry, XS.”

Without her powers, Nora can only stand there when Queen Bee smashes her gauntlet over the back of an unsuspecting Joss’ head, knocking her out cold. The blonde rips the staff from her hand and points it, along with one of the nearby energy guns, at the speedster.

“Change of plans,” finishes Queen Bee as Merkel lunges towards Nora on all fours.

 

* * *

 

Joss groans as she comes to, the back of her head throbbing with pressure and pain. She’s sitting, but something’s stopping her from falling forward—her eyes snap open to Larvan and Merkel doing a livestream, something about demanding The Flash shows up to reveal his identity. The blonde bitch has her staff, and as Joss looks around, she sees Nora and the other hostages handcuffed in chairs… and realizes that she is, too. _Fucking Bug-Eyed Bandit._

“You don’t want the money?” growls Nora, who’s seated in front of Joss.

“Oh, we want the money,” assures Larvan with a wink. “But, Merkel and I figure raising our supervillain profiles wouldn’t hurt either. Maybe pick up some good gigs.”

Joss has heard enough. She interrupts with a classic, “What the fuck, Larvan?”

“You and the she-eedster over there were getting awful chummy in that office,” offers Queen Bee with a sneer. “Sorry, Weather Bitch. You should’ve hung out with the cool kids instead.”

“Oh _come on,_ you and Raggedy Andy aren’t going to be able to do this haul without me.”

Larvan scoffs. “Yeah, because what we really need is a sad little girl with a lightsaber.”

“I think it’s been thirty seconds,” interrupts Merkel, almost excitedly. “Which one goes first?”

“Eenie, meenie—“ Queen Bee lifts one of the laser pistols, pointing it at the head of a guard. “Miney—“

“Wait! I am here.”

The Flash, dressed in his trademark red and yellow speedsuit, is suddenly standing behind the mutinous Rogues, his hands up in surrender. Joss rolls her eyes—predictable white knight softness.

“All right, Speedy,” shouts Larvan as she and Merkel creep towards him. “Mask off. Let’s see who you really are.”

“Dad, please, you don’t have to—“ Nora’s cut off by The Flash, whose voice sounds… strange.

“I have to. I am a man, sitting alone at the dinner table.”

Larvan and Merkel exchange looks. It’s not even his voice so much as his inflection that’s strange, haughty and almost lilting? _Is he drunk?_ Judging by the way Nora’s shoulders stiffen, she hears it, too.

“See! When you’re in a position to feed the world, it can make it hard to be a father. You have to constantly ask yourself: Is what’s right for the world, right for your child?”

Queen Bee tilts her head questioningly, and then Merkel picks up a grenade and casually tosses it at the speedster. It passes right through him and explodes with a burst of green fire that consumes a desk, but in the end, The Flash is still standing there.

“Ha! I phased right through your—“

“He’s a hologram,” hisses Rag Doll, turning back to the hostages.

In the kerfuffle, not even Joss noticed the other hostages getting to their feet, free of their cuffs somehow—until one of them is pulling the silver bracelets off Nora’s wrists, and another calls out to Queen Bee:

“Confused? Don’t be.” The guard lifts what looks like a pen light to his face, and he transforms into The Flash—someone who must be the _real_ Flash.

A series of additional beeps catches her attention, and two more of the “hostages” quickly transform into Team Flash, armed with weapons of their own. Joss looks to Larvan just to enjoy the sight of what little color she has leaving her face.

“Holy shrap,” gasps XS.

“We bypassed security you were busy with the general, and then you walked us worker bees right inside,” explains a woman dressed in black fatigues and mask, lifting a gun to her shoulder in the Rogues’ direction.

“It’s over. You’re outnumbered, so surrender now,” adds an older, also-masked man next to her.

 _Cop._ Joss finds Nora and tugs at her binds, realizing with a flare of annoyance that they don’t plan on releasing her. Was this a set up after all? XS had sounded surprised, but they cut _her_ free, no questions, even though this was all supposedly the speedster’s grand idea in the first damn place.

She had been so, so stupid.

Queen Bee shrieks in frustration that matches Joss’ feelings and sends a cloud of her bots up to guard the dampener, then she opens fire, exchanging laser blasts with Team Flash as everyone scatters.

“Hey! What the _fuck,_ don’t leave me here!” yells Joss, trying to twist out of her chair as heat zings far too close to her head for comfort. “Hello? _Fuck—“_

She feels her wrists come free just as Larvan looses a laser bolt straight for her, and somehow, someone’s already pulling her down over the arm of the chair. The beam slices into her leg as she flips to the floor, instantly cauterizing itself, but the intensity of the burning pain nearly makes her black out.

“Come on,” someone is saying, tugging at her sleeve. “Joss, you gotta move.”

And then Nora’s hauling her up, slinging one of Joss’ arms around her shoulders to half-drag her to safety behind a large stack of metal crates.

“I’m fine. I’m fine!” snaps the Witch as she’s plopped unceremoniously on the ground. Behind Nora, the battle rages on without them.

“You’re welcome,” mutters XS, straightening up to peer around the corner.

“I knew you were working with him!” Joss snarls at her back, fists clenched against the ground. “This is entrapment, you know?”

The speedster faces her again, frowning. “I didn’t _do_ this.”

“Sure, right.”

Nora ducks her head as something nearby explodes, raining debris over them. Joss throws her arms up to cover her head as a pipe plummets straight down, but then XS is hunched over her, arms out, and she yelps in pain when the metal strikes her shoulder. It knocks the speedster fully off her feet, and she lands on Joss’ chest with a _whump_ that leaves them both gasping. Their eyes lock.

“How many times do I have to save you before you believe me?” grumbles Nora, and it’s frankly so endearing that The Witch allows a small chuckle.

Mostly, she’s focused on the strong body pressing hers into the floor, imminent death or no. She’s only human.

But they _are_ in the middle of a fight, so XS rolls to one side and helps Joss to her feet. “I’ve gotta help my dad.”

Joss’ fingers clamp around XS’s wrist before she can stop them, and with a rising panic, she just goes with the words that follow: “Nora, no. She’ll shoot you. You don’t have your powers.”

“Neither does my dad.”

There’s a startlingly clear moment where Joss knows there’s _nothing_ she could do to stop Nora, and the Witch sees the superhero in her, _really_ sees it, for the first time. She herself wouldn’t spit on her parents if they were on fire. But XS wrenches herself free, and then she’s scrambling across the distance to where The Flash alone is trying to break through the cloud of bees with his laser gun, and he’s not having much luck. Joss knows enough about Larvan’s near endless cloud of nanobugs that he’ll never break through with that thing, no matter how he and Nora try to plan it. _Something_ has to give first.

That’s when her eyes fall on her staff, which Queen Bee has tossed to the floor in the heat of the fight. It’s midway between where she’s crouched and the blonde techie, but it’s a far enough distance that she’ll be lucky to make it close enough to put her hand on the weapon with her leg injured like it is. Larvan’s attention is solely focused on keeping The Flash and XS bunkered down, and the endless ammo mean she doesn’t have to stop for anything.

From her angle, the Witch can see the two speedsters talking, probably trying to come up with a plan. XS’ eyebrows are quirked up like they do when she’s worried, and The Flash has that _look_ on his face that tells her he’s about to do something dumb. Idly, Joss wonders if XS knows how much she looks like that when her mind is set, if only so she doesn’t wonder why she suddenly cares if he gets blasted to oblivion or not.

It’s totally tactical, she reasons. If Larvan defeats The Flash, she’ll go after XS next—and probably the Weather Witch too, since she and Merkel had left her out of the plan in the first place. She’s trying not to take it personally; the traitor duo’s payday from this job just doubled, if they win. _If._

With an annoyed huff, Joss checks that Rag Doll is still occupied fighting the other two members of Team Flash by the door, and then she makes her move, diving out from behind the crates towards her staff.

 

* * *

 

It’s taking Cisco far too long to decommission the bot bees. The fallen cabinet serving as their shield is going to crumble soon, and Barry keeps saying these soft, self-sacrificial things that makes Nora want to shake him and confess her whole plan, her double agent status, but she knows there’s no time, and the revelation won’t stop him, anyway.

This, _again,_ is her own fault. Larvan’s treachery should’ve been a variable in her calculations all along, and now her father could pay the price for her lack of foresight. _So stupid._

Her only option is penance.

When a laser blast zings by their heads close enough that she can feel the heat on her cheek, Nora’s decision becomes clear as a bolt of lightning in a night sky. She pushes her dad down as hard as she can, knocking him on his back, and runs into the open with her gun ready. She hears the whirr of the Queen Bee’s weapon firing, sees the flash of light, and it’s too late that she notices red and yellow floating into her periphery. Barry’s diving straight into the line of fire in front of her, and Nora opens her mouth to protest—

He hits the ground with an affronted _oof,_ and Nora’s too busy rushing to make sure he’s okay to realize the room has gone mostly quiet.

“Were you hit? Are you okay?” she nearly shouts, crouching over him, but she can’t find a wound.

The Flash is breathing hard, but then he smiles up at her, and finally, she sees the yellow sparks traversing his body. “Yeah—I’m not the only one.”

Nora sees purple light jump across the back of her hand, and then she _feels_ it, the rush of electrons and adrenaline that signals her powers are back. When they both look up at their attacker, Queen Bee is frozen with her weapon raised, the laser beam travelling sluggishly through the air towards them. Nora disintegrates it with her own bolt, and then she sees what happened when she notices a pile of little dark dots—nanobees—lifeless on the ground, except for the sparks arcing between them.

The indomitable Joss Jackam is standing a few feet to Larvan’s left, staff raised high in both hands as her natural, white-blue lightning extending from its scorched end to the now-destroyed dampener.

“She saved us,” breathes Nora, blinking hard to make sure she’s not imagining it.

“She’s still a criminal,” begins her dad, but he quickly clears his throat and adds, “But you’re the one who’s spent some time getting to know her, right?”

Nora turns to him fully now, letting the weight of what she’s learned take hold in her mind, to chase away the lingering traces of the Negative Speed Force. Ironically, it had been the Weather Witch’s own story of parental abandonment that made her realize that her own were quite different. Unlike young Joss living on the run, Nora had been almost immediately tracked down by her mother. Iris had even gone against Barry to see her, to talk to her—and as much resentment as she harbors against her timeline’s version of the woman, this Iris has also helped her see the full person behind the disagreements. Fierce, loyal, _loving._ Nora can’t imagine the pain that must’ve come with The Flash’s disappearance after witnessing Iris and Barry _together_ for the first time in this world.

She focuses on the love that endures, not the loss. Her dad had come up to the Starchives wanting to talk, not fight; he could have worn his speedsuit, but he didn’t. It’s messy and strained, but she felt their connection even then. She knows she doesn’t need the Negative Speed Force anymore and lets it go.

“You stayed with me. The whole time,” she says, when she finally feels the dark ball in her stomach fade, like a horrible scream dying away to reveal serene silence.

“I’m not going anywhere,” confirms her dad, enveloping XS in a quick hug. “Should we...?”

“Let’s.”

Now back with their superspeed, the two easily grab and cuff Merkel and Larvan, ending their spree before it ever truly began and piling them in the middle of the floor for the police to come fetch.

And that leaves Joss Jackam, the Weather Witch. Nora takes her staff, gently, and when they reenter the normal flow of time, the woman stumbles forward. XS catches her with her free hand as the natural lightning blinks out. Almost seeming frozen again, they regard each other warily, and then Joss’ dark eyes slip down to where Nora’s hand is resting on her arm. The speedster releases it immediately, but her palm tingles with heat that she suspects isn’t lightning-based at all.

“So, what now?” asks Joss, hoarsely, after a quick assessment of Larvan and Merkel. “You gonna dump me at a police station again?”

Nora tilts her head, then shakes it. “No. I think… I think you deserve another chance. I took the last one from you, and I’m still sorry about that.”

“You’re just letting me go?”

“With a humble request that you keep your… villainy non-violent,” sighs XS with the best grin she can manage. “If possible. It’s kinda on me now, too.”

The Weather Witch studies her, and Nora tries not to think about how her stomach flutters under that intense gaze. She turns her eyes down, and then hands the staff back to the other woman. Joss wraps her fingers around it with half her hand overlapping Nora’s, forcing the speedster to look up at her again as neither of them move. Tension seems to radiate from where their hands touch, filling the space, and Nora’s breathing picks up as her brain short circuits, mouth stammering out nonsensical syllables for a few seconds before just clicking her jaw closed again. She’d wondered if the Weather Witch’s _effect_ on her had been from the NSF… but apparently not.

One side of Joss’ lips quirks up, and she slides her hand up away from Nora’s to take the staff. “I guess I’ll try my best, XS. I gotta stop back in Keystone C—“

In hindsight, Nora acknowledges that she probably should’ve given some warning before zipping them back to the now-defunct HQ. Joss’ long braid smacks haphazardly against a stack of boxes when they come to a jolting stop.

“Jesus Christ on a—“

The Weather Witch stops talking with a soft gasp when Nora closes the space between them, ripping off her mask with superspeed to press her lips against Joss’. She maybe should’ve given some warning for that, too, but the staff immediately _clunks_ to the ground, and both of Joss’ hands tangle in the front of her jacket to haul her closer as she kisses Nora back. It’s too hard at first, noses and teeth crashing together, but then Joss nips at her lip, asking, and the Weather Witch’s mouth tastes surprisingly sweet as her tongue slips into Nora’s.

 

* * *

 

This shouldn’t feel so right.

Joss is no wilting maid. She’s kissed plenty of women, and men, plenty of times. All different kinds of people, including plenty she probably shouldn’t have. But the otherwise somewhat bashful XS is gripping her hips with unexpected assuredness, and Joss’ knees might’ve given out if not for those strong hands holding her upright and pressed tight against Nora’s front. The kiss is urgent, needy, and the air fills with soft gasps traded between them. The speedster’s tongue strokes into her mouth, and her brain’s screaming an alert that this has gone too far, that there’s a foe getting too close, but her body’s five steps ahead already, racing right to the heated skin she can feel against her stomach from their shirts riding up.

She sucks in a ragged breath when Joss drops her head to kiss along her jaw, and this might’ve gotten completely out of control if not for Nora’s leg bumping the burn on her thigh, turning her gasps into a hiss of pain.

When XS looks up at her, the honey-brown of her eyes is darkened by blown pupils, and it takes several seconds for the speedster to gather words as they breathe hard against each other.

“I have to… go back,” murmurs Nora, her voice raw. “There’s a lot I need to explain to my mom and dad.”

Joss nods, feeling the haze break a bit. Just another person moving on from her. _No headlines there,_ she tells herself, pretending it doesn’t twist her stomach.

Even though she could be back in Central City in a literal flash, XS seems to hesitate, taking a couple steps back. “Will you… Would you ever consider, maybe coming to join Team Flash?”

That’s an easy one. “I’m not a hero,” she scoffs.

“You don’t have to be a hero. Just a good person.” Nora offers a small smile. “Think about it.”

Usually, that type of sentimental horseshit would have Joss rolling her eyes, but something about the way the speedster says it lands softly in her chest, where her heart’s still thudding against her ribcage from the kiss and the way Nora’s still looking at her, like she’s considering pushing the Weather Witch against the nearby lockers and resuming their previous trajectory. Joss wouldn’t object.

But she doesn’t. XS just puts her mask back on and sighs. “I, uh… Look, things are beyond crazy right now in Central City, but I think we’re, uh, in the home stretch. Maybe once it’s over, we could talk? No traps?”

 _Talk._ Joss crosses her arms and shrugs, but offers nothing else.

XS seems to accept it, and she looks disappointed, but she retraces her steps forward to give the Weather Witch another kiss, softer this time, but brief, and brushes a thumb along Joss’ cheek.

Then she’s gone in a burst of purple and yellow, probably back to Capital City before Joss can even pick up her staff.

**Author's Note:**

> love it? hate it? should I do a part 2? hmu on tumblr [@trashyeggroll](https://trashyeggroll.tumblr.com/)


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